Mullik (or Mooshir) settles all disputes, and can expel an offender the camp without a Jeirga; he is also absolute with regard to the movements and stations of the camp; but any four or five people may go and advise him on that head, though, if he is resolved, they must abide by his decision,

The Naussers pay a tax to the King which is at present allotted to Abdooreheem Khaun, and this circumstance appears to counte

nance a pretension which they often advance to a connection by blood with the Hotukees. The Hotukees say that the Naussers have been their Humsauyahs, but not their kindred: some even represent them as sprung from the Beloches; and though they speak Pushtoo, and strenuously maintain their descent from the Afghauns, their features and appearance certainly indicate a race distinct from that nation.

the south-west monsoon. It extends from Africa to the Malay peninsula, and deluges all the intermediate countries within certain lines of latitude, for four months in the year. In the south of India this monsoon commences about the beginning of June, but it gets later as we advance towards the north. Its approach is an nounced by vast masses of clouds that rise from the Indian ocean, and advance towards the northeast, gathering and thickening as they approach the land. After some threatening days, the sky assumes a troubled appearance in the evenings, and the monsoon in general sets in during the night. It is attended with such a thunder storm as can scarcely be imagined by those who have only seen that phenomenon in a temperate climate. It generally begins with violent blasts of wind, which are succeeded by floods of rain. For some hours lightning is seen almost without

intermission; sometimes it only illuminates the sky, and shows the clouds, near the horizon; at others it discovers the distant hills, and again leaves all in darkness, when in an instant it re-ap

flashes, and exhibits the nearest objects in all the brightness of day. During all this time the distant thunder never ceases to roll, and is only silenced by some nearer peal, which bursts on the ear with such a sudden and tremendous crash as can scarcely fail to strike the most insensible heart with awe. At length the thunder ceases, and nothing is heard but the continued pouring of the rain, and the rushing of the rising streams. The next day presents a gloomy spectacle; the rain still descends in torrents and scarcely allows a view of the blackened fields: the rivers are swoln and discoloured, and sweep down along with them the hedges the huts, and the remains of the cultivation which was carried on, during the dry season, in their beds.

This lasts for some days, after which the sky clears, and discovers the face of nature changed as if by enchantment.

Before

the storm the fields were parched up, and except in the beds of the rivers, scarce a blade of vegetation was to be seen: the clearness of the sky was not interrupted by a single cloud, but the atmosphere was loaded with dust, which was sufficient to render distant objects dim, as in a mist, and to make the sun appear dull and discoloured, till he attained a considerable elevation: a parching wind blew like a blast from a furnace, and heated wood, iron, and every other solid material, even in the shade; and immediately before the monsoon, this wind had been succeeded by still more sultry calms. But when the first violence of the storm is over, the whole earth is covered with a sudden but luxuriant verdure: the rivers are full and tranquil; the air is pure and delicious; and the sky is varied and embellished with clouds. The effect of the change is visible on all the animal creation, and can only be imagined in Europe by supposing the depth of a dreary winter to start at once into all the freshness and brilliancy of Spring. From this time the rain falls at intervals for about a month, when it comes on again with great violence, and in July the rains are at their height: during the third month, they rather diminish, but are still heavy: and in September they gradually abate, and are often entirely suspended, till near the end of the month; when they depart amidst thunders and tempests as they

came.

Such is the monsoon in the

greater part of India. It is not, however, without some diversity, the principal feature of which is

the delay in its commencement, and the diminution in the quantity of rain, as it recedes from the sea.

In the countries which are the subject of the present inquiry, the monsoon is felt with much less violence than in India, and is exhausted at no great distance from the sea, so that no trace of it can be perceived at Candahar. A remarkable exception to this rule is, however, to be observed in the north-east of Afghaunistaun, which, although much further from the sea than Candahar, is subject to the monsoon, and what is equally extraordinary, receives it from the east.

.

These anomalies may perhaps be accounted for by the following considerations. It is to be ob served, that the clouds are formed by the vapours of the Indian ocean, and are driven over the land by a wind from the southwest. Most part of the tract in which the kingdom of Caubul lies, is to leeward of Africa and Arabia, and receives only the vapours of the narrow sea between its southern shores and the latter country, which are but of small extent, and are exhausted in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast. India lying further east, and beyond the shelter of Africa, the monsoon spreads over it without any obstruction. It is naturally most severe near the sea from which it draws its supplies, and is exhausted after it has past over a great extent of land. For this reason, the rains are more or less plentiful in each country, according to its distance from the sea, except in those near high mountains, which arrest the clouds, and procure a larger supply of

rain for the neighbouring tracts, than would have fallen to their share, if the passage of the clouds had been unobstructed.

The obstacle presented to the clouds and winds by the mountains has another effect of no small importance. The southwest monsoon blows over the ocean in its natural direction; and, though it may experience some diversities after it reaches the land, its general course over India may still be said to be towards the north-east, till it is exhausted on the western and central parts of the peninsula. The provinces in the north-east receive the monsoon in a different manner: the wind which brings the rains to that part of the continent, originally blows from the south-west, over the Bay of Bengal, till the mountains of HemalTeh, and those which join them from the south, stop its progress, and compel it to follow their course towards the north-west. The prevailing wind, therefore, in the region south-west of Hemalleh, is from the south-east, and it is from that quarter that our provinces in Bengal receive their rains. But when the wind has reached so far to the northwest as to meet with Hindoo Coosh, it is again opposed by that mountain, and turned off along its face towards the west, till it meets the projection of Hindoo Coosh and the range of Solimaun, which prevent its further progress in that direction, or at least compel it to part with the clouds with which it was loaded. The effect of the mountains in stopping the clouds borne by this wind, is different in different places. Near

the sea, where the clouds are still in a deep mass, part is discharged on the hills and the country beneath them, and part passes up to the north-west; but part makes its way over the first hills, and produces the rains in Tibet. In the latitude of Cashmeer, where the hills are considerably exhausted, this division is little perceived: the southern face of the hills and the country still farther south is watered; and a part of the clouds continue their progress to Afghaunistaun; but few make their way over the mountains or reach the valley of Cashmeer, The clouds which pass on to Afghaunistaun are exhausted as they go: the rains become weaker and weaker, and at last are merely sufficient to water the mountains, without much affecting the plains at their base.

The above observations will explain, or at least connect the following facts. The south-west monsoon commences on the Malabar coast in May, and is there very violent; it is later and more moderate in Mysore; and the Coromandel coast, covered by the mountainous countries on its west, is entirely exempt from it. Further north, the monsoon begins early in June, and loses a good deal of its violence, except in the places influenced by the neighbourhood of the mountains or the sea, where the fall of water is very considerable. About Delly, it does not begin till the end of June, and the fall of rain is greatly inferior to what is felt at Calcutta or Bombay. In the north of the Punjaub, near the hills, it exceeds that of Delly; but, in the south of the Punjaub, distant

both from the sea and the hills, very little rain falls. The countries under the hills of Cashmeer, and those under Hindoo Coosh, (Pukhlee, Boonere, and Swaut) have all their share of the rains; but they diminish as we go west, and at Swaut are reduced to a month of clouds, with occasional showers. In the same month (the end of July and beginning of August) the monsoon appears in some clouds and showers at Peshawer, and in the Bungush and Khuttuk countries. It is still less felt in the valley of the Caubul river, where it does not extend beyond Lughmann; but in Bajour and Punjcora, under the southern projection, in the part of the Caufir country, which is situated on the top of the same projection, and in Teera, situated in the angle formed by Tukhti Solimaun and its eastern branches, the south-west monsoon is heavy, and forms the principal rains of the year. There is rain in this season in the country of the Jaujees and Torees, which probably is brought from the north by the eddy in the winds: but I have not information enough to enable me to conjecture whether that which falls in Bunno and the neighbouring countries is to be ascribed to this cause, or to the regular monsoon from the south-west.

The regular monsoon is felt as far west as the utmost boundary of Mekraun: it is not easy to fix its limits on the north-west with precision, but I have no accounts of it beyond a line drawn through the northern part of the table land of Kelaut and the northern parts of Shoraubuk of Pisheen, and of Zhobe, to the source of the

SPOTTED HYENA.

(From Lichtenstein's Travels in Southern Africa, Vol. II.)

The spotted hyena, hyäna crocuta, is here called simply the wolf. It is a very common practice to call objects purely African by the name of any European object to which they have the nearest affinity, This animal is by far the most abundant of any among the beasts of prey in the colony, even in the chasms about the Table Mountain there are many, that the farms nearest to the Cape Town are often extremely annoyed by them; nay, in the year 1804, it once happened that a hyena came by night absolutely into the town itself, as far as the hospital. These animals keep, in winter, about the heights of the

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